3: The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

The National Labor Relations Board is a federal agency established under Franklin Roosevelt whose assigned duty it is to protect employees, while balancing the rights of unions and management. In an unprecedented move, it has recently moved to bar Boeing from opening a second aircraft assembly line in South Carolina rather than Washington state. In a second unprecedented move, the agency is about to reverse decades-old policy and allow unions to organize small groups of employees to gain a toehold in the company, rather than the entire company workforce at once (a more difficult project).

The agency currently is dominated by union lawyers, and one of the main advocates for these changes is Craig Becker, a controversial former lawyer for the SEIU, who has written that management should have no say whatever in unionizing activities. After his nomination was rejected by the Senate (on the failure of a cloture vote), President Obama nevertheless appointed Mr. Becker to the board a month later, while the Senate was in recess.

Recess appointments have been practiced since the Constitution went into effect. Initially, Congress was very much a part-time legislature, so there was an obvious need to allow the President to appoint officers to posts that might become vacant while the Senate was not in session. Indeed, that was precisely the early understanding. Vacancies might “happen” (in the terminology of Article II, Section 2, cl. 3) if they arise during the recess.

It may be asked why there is any need for recess appointments now that the Senate meets regularly during the course of the year. Surely, there is no need to have recess appointments just because the Senate is on a brief Easter recess or President’s Day long weekend. Even if the recess is longer, say during the month of August, it is unlikely that the President would even be able to gear up for an appointment until the recess is almost over. In the unlikely event of a government crisis, the Congress almost certainly would reconvene quickly. That said, recess appointments are useful for lower-level appointments on which the Senate has failed to act for some time. Moreover, they can protect the President’s constitutional prerogatives, if the Senate purposely seeks to weaken the President by failing to act on his nominations made while the Senate is in session.

Presidents have long interpreted the clause to give them a writ to make recess appointments for vacancies as long as those vacancies exist during the recess, even if they arose earlier. This interpretation has been upheld judicially. But even though it may be constitutionally justifiable, it raises serious political issues. Presidential appointments for vacancies that arise while the Senate is in session, but are not filled until the President can do so unilaterally when the Senate is in recess are delicate matters. Such appointments can easily be seen as end-runs around the constitutional blending and overlapping of functions.

Now add to that if the recess appointment is of an individual who was previously rejected by the Senate. The politics of such a move clearly invite Senatorial rebuke, and President Obama’s appointment of Craig Becker was lambasted by a number of Republican Senators.

As early as 1863, Congress tried to rein in recess appointments, by prohibiting payment of salary to anyone appointed during the Senate’s recess, until the Senate confirms. Today, the Pay Act, 5 U.S.C. 5503, prohibits such payments only if the vacancy already existed while the Senate was in session. The act also provides certain exceptions. For example, it does not restrict salaries of recess appointees if the nomination was pending when the Senate recessed. Neither does the salary restriction apply if the Senate, within 30 days before the end of a session, rejected a nominee of the President to the office. However, that exception, in turn, does not apply if the President during the recess appoints the rejected nominee. It should be noted that the end of a “session” is the end of the annual term. Thus, when Congress adjourns this December, it will be the end of the first session of the 112th Congress. Merely rejecting a nominee before a holiday recess is not the end of a session.

One wonders, therefore, whether President Obama’s NLRB man, Craig Becker, is entitled to payment of salary. One argument he might make is that the nomination technically was not formally rejected because it was filibustered and never came up for a vote on the merits. Since it was not withdrawn, the nomination technically was still pending when the recess occurred.

By statute, if a recess appointment is made, the appointee’s name must be submitted to the Senate soon after its next session begins. President Obama has done so with Mr. Becker. If the appointment is not confirmed, the officer may continue to serve, but must step down at the end of that next session. Thus, Mr. Becker’s term will end in December of this year, as he was appointed by the President in March, 2010. If Mr. Becker is rejected, he will not be permitted to draw a salary, if a routine provision to that effect in funding bills continues to be used.

Finally, the political virtuosity of the recess appointment device is shown by the fact that, even if the Senate rejects Mr. Becker, there will be new vacancies on the NLRB, and the President can wait for the next recess to appoint his ideological fellow to the agency once more. Mr. Becker could then serve until the end of 2012, again without Senate confirmation.

Unlike appointments to administrative or executive positions, recess appointments of judges are uncommon. Bill Clinton made one; George W. Bush made two; Barack Obama has made none so far. No President has made a recess appointment to the Supreme Court since Dwight Eisenhower, who appointed Chief Justice Warren, Justice Brennan, and Justice Stewart in that manner.

An expert on constitutional law, Prof. Joerg W. Knipprath has been interviewed by print and broadcast media on a number of related topics ranging from recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to presidential succession. He has written opinion pieces and articles on business and securities law as well as constitutional issues, and has focused his more recent research on the effect of judicial review on the evolution of constitutional law. He has also spoken on business law and contemporary constitutional issues before professional and community forums. Read more from Professor Knipprath at: http://www.tokenconservative.com/.